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I discovered this book existed at a moment laden with coincidence. I was in a comic book store in Berlin — my first time there. The store had only a small selection of graphic novels in English. But the proprietor was very kind and I was there on Halloween long enough to witness him giving comic books to all the trick-or-treaters. He didn’t bat an eyelash at the one child who left the store complaining to their parent “But I don’t even LIKE comic books!” I also heard a young boy ask him something in German (which I didn’t understand) to which he laughingly replied something like “you can try it” and the boy promptly put a corner of the comic book in his mouth. Anyway, I wanted to support his store, and I am a fan of Ryan North, and Kurt Vonnegut, of course, so I supposed I would read this the next day, when I planned to be on a train for much of the day.

But I ended up not taking the train from Berlin to Milan, opting for a (surprisingly less expensive) half-hour flight instead. So I only read a bit of it in the hotel, and only just finished it several weeks later. It gave me a sense of unease that definitely reminded me of reading the original novel. I don’t really think I need to revisit this story again, but I have no regrets.

I enjoyed this book probably more than the fist one in the series. It had the same multiple-stories-with-the-same-characters-but-at-different-times gimmick going on, but it was somehow less distracting this time around. Also, I think I was able to keep all the characters straight this time, more so than Demon King anyway. I still think there were too many characters, and too much effort trying to make an "epic" story. I really praise the Raksura books for the world building, but this one just feels weird and somehow lopsided to me. If Wells actually knows all the details of the different factions / races, she's doing a really good job keeping them close to her chest. Big mysteries to the reader are treated as facts everyone knows by the characters, and things we know as readers are often treated as secrets from everyone but the main character, Kai. When put this way, it sounds very intentional, and maybe it is, but it doesn't really read that way. It probably sounds more fun than I intend it to sound. But I do enjoy finding all the details out, so she's doing something right. The action is also definitely good. (Although there were some scenes – one notable one toward the end – that just totally felt missing to me!) I did also enjoy further getting to know the characters.

Minor spoiler - I will say that this leaves major plot points unresolved. I think someone was trying to set up for a third book.